New phones from Samsung, HTC to support “Facebook Home” app family

A flagship Facebook phone will come with the apps preinstalled.

Saying that a phone should be designed around "people first," Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg formally announced a new Facebook-centric smartphone experience called "Facebook Home" at a press event in San Francisco Thursday. Zuckerberg also announced a new handset from HTC named the HTC First.

The phone experience centers on the lock screen, which Zuckerberg said is the same as the home screen. The lock screen experience is named “cover feed” and can be navigated via swipes and taps. Swiping up from the cover feed produces an app launcher that allows users to access the rest of their apps.

Cover feed also allows users to browse photos, double-tap to like something, or leave a comment without ever unlocking the phone. Zuckerberg said that the interface is designed around "people, not apps." The interface bears many similarities to the stock Android UI.

The Facebook Home-enabled lock screen/cover feed.

A "chat head" message window.

A chat head alert popping over another app.

In addition to the lock screen experience, Facebook Home includes a feature called "chat heads," a messaging interface that uses chat partners' faces as tabs for their messaging windows. When a user is in any app, a “chat head” can appear off to the side of the screen. Users can tap the icon to enter the conversation and then swipe upward to take the messaging interface off the screen and return to the app they were in before. Both SMS and Facebook messages can use the "chat head" alert.

Facebook Home can be downloaded from the Google Play store starting April 12. When it's first launched, Facebook cautions that Android makes certain the user "really" wants to use it as the default interface, and the user can try it before committing to it as the default. Tablets will not be a party to the initial launch, but Facebook says the interface will come to that form factor "months later."

Initially, only four smartphones will support Facebook Home: the HTC One, HTC One X/X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy S 4, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. Facebook stated explicitly that it is not forking Android or creating a Facebook operating system.

In addition to Facebook's new app suite, it is also launching a new phone named the HTC First that comes with the Facebook Home experience pre-installed. The phone will come in four colors (black, white, sky blue, and red), it is priced at $99.99 with a two-year contract, and its only carrier partner will be AT&T. Pre-orders for the phone open today, and like Facebook Home, it will ship April 12.

During the Q&A following the event, Facebook stated that only Android phones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich or higher will support the Facebook home suite of apps. Initially, the experience will not include ads, but Zuckerberg said that advertising will eventually be present, particularly in the cover feed.

The Facebook Home experience will also have some granularity in the settings, where users can turn features like chat heads or the cover feed lock screen on and off. Facebook did not indicate any intent to bring similar functionality to either the iOS or Windows Phone platforms.

A Facebook phone has been worked over by the rumor mill since 2010, and its existence had been denied by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg until now. Screenshots and mockups of an OS and phone body design leaked Wednesday.

Facebook’s press event is currently in progress, and Ars reporters are on the ground liveblogging it minute by minute. We will update this article as more details become available.

There is no effing way an integrated Facebook environment is touching my phone. I do use facebook frequently, but always log in manually via an incognito/private browser with as many features turned off as possible.

Will Facebook arbitrarily change the UI on your phone every few months?

You may not like the UI changes but after about 2 weeks of bitching everyone learns the new button location and quits complaining, and forgets about it.

It may suck that they happen so often and I agree it can be a bit jarring at times but calling them arbitrary is silly. The FB ui has improved and made sharing easier. That may not be an improvement for you specially but not every feature is tailored to your specific use case.

I personally would rather deal with a small change every few months then 20 on one day every few years.

If they're going to give up that much data on the "lock screen", what the hell is the point of even having something called the "lock screen"? Or am I missing something here?

It locks out all the other apps that might want to use it.

Well no sh*... but putting most of an app's content (one of the most reavealing personal information apps) on the lock screen is sort of making a mockery of the whole idea of a "lock screen".

Edit for thread consistancy: "Yo dawg, we heard you liked stuff on your lock screen, so we put the entire app on there... coming soon, a Lock-Screen Lock Screen so that people can't see your lock screen!"

If they're going to give up that much data on the "lock screen", what the hell is the point of even having something called the "lock screen"? Or am I missing something here?

It's in line with all other Facebook updates: there is always, always, always an aspect of the change that causes more of your information to become public. In this case it happens to be more public access to your public feed for anyone using your phone, but it was going to be something.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

The lock screen experience is named “cover feed,” and can be navigated via swipes and taps. Swiping up from the cover feed produced an app launcher that allows users to access the rest of their apps.Cover feed allows users to browse photos, double-tap to like something, or leave a comment without ever unlocking the phone.

Isn't the point of a lock screen to secure your phone and prevent arbitrary input? Why even have a lock screen if anyone can pick up your phone and comment on your personal FB. Or accidentally like an obscene friend status while sliding your phone in your pocket.

People don't use 'check in' crap. No problem, got GPS on them now.People don't use Facebook? No problem, just sniff the phone's contact list and incoming/outgoing phone calls and build a profile on them slowly.Want to have access to SMS to mine even more data? No problem, done!

All that thanks to Android permissions ... oh and bring users a "superior" experience of course.

I wonder if this requires Android 4.2? A few months ago, a Samsung rep told me that the next large update for my S3 would be coming in April. It's not unreasonable to think that Facebook would have a firm date from Samsung and the carriers.

If 4.2 is the key issue, why is the Nexus 4 excluded?

I'm sure it's way less likely that 4.2 is required and more along the lines of Samsung and HTC were willing to work with FB to help create the launcher so it works as well as it can. I'm sure some money was exchanged. Also why would Google want to turn it's phone over to the competition willingly? Sure someone at XDA will have an .apk ready before the 13th but still.

I wonder if the EVO LTE, which is the same phone as the One X, will actually support it.

The saddest part about all of this is the HTC First shows that HTC is fully capable of delivering a phone that is almost the perfect size and specs but chooses to neuter it to just a gimmick. 4.3" screen, good CPU, great resolution for the size (720p) but only 1GB RAM (HTC has shown they don't do well with ICS/JB and only 1GB on an S4 chipset).

Still though, perfect size, but I wouldn't want to have the Facebook experience permanently baked in.

I'd like to try this, just to see what it's about, but I already uninstalled the main app since it tried to delete the official Play Store version, I wouldn't trust it to be my launcher.

No thank you.As I'm trying to pull further & further away from FB, it's trying to push itself closer to ubiquity. Would this have be developed if FB had not gone public?

Uninstalling the FB app on my Droid now before I get another "update notification" in my status bar that I can't swipe away which circumvents the Play Store and suddenly my beautiful & streamlined set up is jacked for FB invasion. >:-P

So if this is just a new launcher why can it run on only 6 phones? If they aren't mucking with any OS code I don't see why this wouldn't run on a Nexus device. If they have messed with OS code then I don't see how this isn't a fork.

As if having every manufacturer creating a fork of Android wasn't enough now we have software companies doing it as well. Great. I want my OS updates coming from the same company that is writing the OS.

So if this is just a new launcher why can it run on only 6 phones? If they aren't mucking with any OS code I don't see why this wouldn't run on a Nexus device. If they have messed with OS code then I don't see how this isn't a fork..

Both Sense and Touchwiz have special code in their OS overlays that allow them to do nifty things with widgets that isn't in standard Android.

The One X and S3 are both running 4.1 and have the latest HTC/Samsung code compared to the rest of those company's products. My guess is they tapped into those APIs/functions specific to those versions of Sense/TW and that's why you don't see it on Motorola, Google, LG, or Sony